Many studios went to great lengths this year

Apr 6, 2015 18:57 GMT  ·  By

April Fools’ Day came and went last week, and the gaming industry certainly enjoyed one day of fake announcements, surprise updates, and general tomfoolery. Some were great, whereas others less so, but overall, there were plenty of solid efforts from companies like Blizzard, Sony, Mojang, and many others.

I've decided to do a small roundup and emphasize some of the best in terms of hilarity, execution, and real impact.

Blizzard brought some great surprises

First up, as always, there’s Blizzard. The large studio is quite dedicated to the April Fools’ celebration, and this time around, it brought lots of different surprises for all of its currently playable games (sorry, no prank for Overwatch).

In terms of real-world impact, Heroes of the Storm got the only serious effect, as Blizzard turned on Big Head mode in the multiplayer game, drastically increasing the size of the heroes' heads inside the game. Hilarity, as you can imagine, ensued, with some players believing that it was a glitch, whereas others embraced the whole outlandish situation.

Other games got just theoretical updates, such as World of Warcraft, for which Blizzard announced that a Tinder-like mechanic was going to launch so that the AI-controlled companions could find love in the world of Azeroth. For Hearthstone, the studio offered a huge list of changes for the game as part of a fake update. From Ninja cards that beat pirates to huge modifications for controversial cards, the studio and players had a blast.

Not all of them were all that great, however, as StarCraft 2's promise of real-world spaceship was great in concept but a bit fuzzy in execution, leading some to believe that it was some form of pre-order bonus for the upcoming Legacy of the Void expansion.

Sony and BioWare also did well

Another solid performer was Sony, which certainly earns the award for the best presentation of its April Fools’ joke - the PlayStation Flow. The special gadget, according to Sony, brought together real-world swimming and the virtual one seen in games like The Last of Us Remastered. While such an idea might not be that outlandish, the fact that you could broadcast gameplay straight to your swimming goggles certainly gave the whole project away as a very elaborate prank.

Even so, the presentation video, the screenshots, and the in-depth details provided by Sony were enough to fool quite a few people.

BioWare also took advantage of April Fools’ Day to present the "first" multiplayer character DLC, in the form of mage musician Zenith, who brings rock and roll (and magic) to the battlefield in Dragon Age: Inquisition. The studio went to some efforts to come up with various abilities and a convincing back story for the new character, but unfortunately, it won't actually be released for Inquisition, despite sounding quite cool.

Mojang takes the cake with Minecraft's Love update

However, the runaway winner of April Fools 2015 is Mojang, the studio behind the hit Minecraft game. The company, now owned by Microsoft, brought forth a full-fledged snapshot update for the PC title, which emphasized love and cooperation, instead of survival and conflict.

From removing any way to hurt others to renaming enemies into inhabitants and changing their behavior, the snapshot update for Minecraft for April Fools certainly put a new spin on the experience and quickly won over many people.

Sure, there were quite a few other April Fools’ surprises worth mentioning, such as the free buggy DLC for Driveclub, the Ultra Rapid Fire mode for League of Legends, or the new mechanics for Dying Light. Even so, Minecraft's love update is the winner, as not only does it greatly impact the game but it also does this in a fun way.